Random Fall Observations

Fall is my favorite season. I like seeing nature change, even though it's still sunny out and generally nice. It's a time for new beginnings. But also new endings!

So in this spirit I would like to make 4 random observations:

Observation Nr. 1: fall in northern California arrives with an almost unnoticeable lowering of temperatures (instead of daytime temps. in the 80s we now have high 60s) and, in certain areas, the leaves change color too. However, judging by the amount of sunlight and people relaxing themselves doing summer-like activities such as biking, sailing and surfing, you'd never know it's fall.

Do you like my shorts?

Observation Nr. 2: cooking a meal for friends can be fun, if done right. Adding immensely to the joy of cooking is when you don't burn your spaghetti sauce.

Yes, I can cook - spaghetti sauce being one of the 3 dishes I know!

Observation Nr. 3: my tomato plants are just about done for the year, and, after I and the new tenant in my old apartment building finish harvesting the couple cherry tomatoes left on the vine, I suppose they should be torn out and composted. I learned this year that not just any tomato plants will grow anywhere, even though we're in California. Also, you do need to give them water more than a simple hosing down twice a week.

I ate two of the pictured tomatos today at work. They tasted good, and meaty

Observation Nr. 4: after my first harvest of lettuce resulted in the lettuce plant going to seed, it would indicate that my lettuce fared no better than my tomatoes. Also that my garden substrate or whatever it is they call the soil is less than perfect. What you see below (behind the reddish chard / rhubarb looking plant) is a former loose leaf lettuce plant that was producing nice leaves for salad. It is slowly coming to resemble a branchy bush ... My friend Willow explained it to me like this: when the plant feels under stress, its urge will always be to procreate. Which explains the "going to seed" phenomenon.

Skyline Blvd

Last weekend I had a chance to finally see the East Bay all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge from up top. I invited my colleague Joe to accompany me on another bike ride. This time, he agreed. But Joe is a secretive guy who didn't want to get photographed, so you will have to just imagine what my colleague looks like (hint, he's married and has a grown son).

For the sake of saving blogspace, I linked the map showing the route
we rode. The road along the top of the ridge (the one that separates Oakland from the dry hinterlands to the east - see previous bike riding blog) is called Skyline Boulevard. I've been up there once before, and wondered how the bike riders got up. Well, last Saturday I figured it out. I will admit I needed the road map in the book I bought, "Bay Area Bike Rides", to do it. VERY much worth the $15 I paid for it.

We started in Orinda (on the back side of the Hills) and took a road through what is called Wildcat Canyon (didn't see any wildcats, unfortunately). We did see "wildcat" bike riders, though. I mean all those brightly colored bike rider dudes riding in packs. Some of them whizzed past us like they were chasing Lance Armstrong. Others, going more leisurely, I was able to follow or even pass.

In the canyon (near the town of Moraga), one of my favorite spots on the eastbay, the road was gentle and winding. I even could smell redwood trees (I apologize for my camera's sake)

Next, we had to ascend up to Skyline Blvd (lower right corner of the circuit on the map at top). The hairpins on the canyon road ascending to Skyline were moderate, by alpine standards, yet were as much as my legs and my ten-speed could handle. It was fun, actually. I kept thinking, what if one of those softball-sized rocks laying on the side of the road actually fell on top of me as I drove underneath? Fortunately, no such incidents occurred. A nice view towards the east greeted us at the top. They had posted extremeley high fire danger and it was not hard to see why. Everything is tinderbox dry. (and people still build homes up there! - after the Oakland hills fire you think they would have learned)

Once up top on Skyline Blvd., we proceed back towards Berkeley, thankfully not having to deal with any major grades (that's "grade" as in "slope", for all you flatlanders). The views up there are spectacular. Here is another sample featuring yours truly




On the way down, we sped through Tildon park (top of Berkeley) and Tildon golf course. Yes, Berkeley has its very own golf course, and I didn't see any tye-died golfers either. When I moved here, I thought like everyone from the Midwest that Berkeley was just the university. Anyone who lived in or "came from" or even went to Berkeley had to be a hippie and communist leaning! Well, after a while you get to learn that even Berkeley also has snobs, suburban homes ... and a golf course (which I want to play on). The subject of Berkeley probably warrants a separate blog entry ...

So that's my "virtual tour" presentation from the Bay Area this week. I am waiting for the big earthquake, predicted to come and upend life as we know it. We could, like, be experiencing the aftermath of a 7.6 earthquake and be living in a cold mountain climate.

In the meantime, I tell myself to try to enjoy life while I can...

Before I finish: thanks to my friends, like Carla from the Netherlands, who confesses they read this blog from time to time. But you didn't leave any messages! Carla, do you think I write this blog just for the satisfaction of the Dead Animal Society and our Midwestern Republican commentator Siskel? Please, if you visit, sign my guestbook. Thank you and good night-

Fantasy Football Update (Steve)

Just so nobody thinks I don't respond to my readers, Steve here is the update on my fantasy football team. For all you other readers, this is how a single guy with computer skills and fast connection can spend his idle time. Don't follow my example! :-)




As you can see, I didn't do terribly well point-wise, but got really lucky, with my opponents each week scoring lower than normal. My scoring total is middle of the pack. However, I still have a 4-1 record. Oh yeah ... did you guess which team is me? Hint : it's named after the city where I now live.

Player-wise, I've dropped a couple duds off my roster, which inevitably happens every year I play this game. Those were:
Tyrone Calico (WR, Ten) (now playing David Patten, WR Wash)
Ryan Moats (RB, Phi) (now playing Brian Finneran, WR Atl)
Eric Johnson (TE, SF) (now playing David Martin, TE GB)

Here's the rest of my roster and my report on each player:

QB: Kerry Collins : playing well, perhaps not up to high 1st round draft level, but close.
Steve McNair : a nice substitute. He won last week's matchup for me with a 26 point performance.

RB: Steven Jackson : showing improvement. Last week was his best game so far.
Kevin Jones : likewise, same as above.
Rickey Williams : my "dark horse" finally coming back from a long suspension

WR: Michael Clayton : a total DUD. This guy was projected to have a great year. Instead his teammate Galloway is collecting all the receptions.
Nate Burleson : mediocre. Hurt by D. Culpepper's lackluster performance and overall bad Vikings management / coaching.
Travis Taylor : a pleasant surprise. I was lucky to get him in the 14th round. Suffers from same problem as Burleson though.
Keenan McCardell : had a nice couple of games to start, but last week he only caught 1 pass for 5 yards! The judgement is still out on him.
David Patten, WR Wash : just picked him up off waivers.
Brian Finneran, WR Atl : likewise.

TE: Jeremy Shockey : glad I picked him high (I think, in the 6th round). He's been my mainstay, very consistent.
David Martin : nice fill-in last week on Shockey's bye.

K: Jason Elam : not as good as I'd hoped.
DST: Bengals : better than expected.

In summary, I'm hopeful about my prospects. My team has thusfar played below its potential, yet I am still 4-1.

Bike Riding

During the last week, I vowed to try to take a ride on my "new" road bike (one I "inherited" from a colleague) every weekend until the weather turns. I guess sometime in November, it will become rainy here and the outdoor recreational opportunities become more limited.

So, this morning found me at the BART train at 40th and MacArthur at 9.30, headed north toward Pittsburgh / Bay Point. The BART ride was surprisingly long. But, with sunlight streaming into the car and not too many passengers, I had a pleasant ride, enjoying the view of the brown California hills (oops, "golden" hills, I am supposed to say). My ride began at the last BART stop (about 15 miles from downtown Oakland, by my reckoning): Pittsburgh / Bay Point. This is an industrial-looking town along the south side of the Sacramento River delta. Lots of not-so-scenic looking refineries and power plants, plus a port to accommodate barge traffic coming down from Sacramento (see map). Not the prettiest place to start a bike ride. But, I had contacted a local biker club and was told this is where the "novices" would meet, at 10 a.m. Well, I got there around 10, and no one else from this "club" was there (I asked another biker resting nearby, just in case I had missed them somehow). The "novices" were apparently taking a break, or had graduated to a better classification. I was on my own. I asked the same biker at the BART stop where I might be able to enjoy a "scenic" ride. He sort of laughed. "Lots of traffic here. I don't like to ride in this area", he said. I could see that the area didn't have that many roads ... and where there are fewer roads, there are more cars. That's just life in California. I noticed the same thing in certain parts of Europe, so I I'm used to that. I set out intrepidly, despite my fellow biker's advice, and headed for the hills.





And what a hill it was! I proceeded from Pittsburgh back toward Walnut Creek (and Oakland) via the "Kirker Pass" on the romantic sounding "Railroad Avenue". I didn't see one other biker on this road. And I soon figured out why. a) lots of fast-moving traffic passing by, b) lots of flat-tire causing gravel and litter on the shoulder / bike lane (the bike lane was not marked as such, but at least there was a stripe), and c) a hill that steadily increased in grade until it because practically impossible at the top to go on. Nevertheless, I didn't regret the ride. I learned the limits of both my own legs and my 10-speed bike. My legs can get me up a short hill, like the one I live on, without too much problem. When it comes to longer inclines though, like the approx. 4 mile uphill I did today over the pass, I still need training. I walked about 1/4 mile. To be fair, my older-model road bike (I'm guessing it was made in the 80s) is also not designed for the faint of heart and body. While modern roadbikes have a forgiving 24 speeds, (allowing even weak guys like myself to traverse most hills), my Peugeot only has 10, of which only 8 are really usable.

As I wrote on the accompanying map, my estimated bike distance was a paltry 18 miles, while the BART ride was about 20 (including the trip back from Walnut Creek to Rockridge). I saw a lot of scenery, including lots of the nice suburbs that border Oakland and Berkeley to the north/west. Lots of sunshine there, hills to go biking and walking, shopping malls, beautiful, tanned (mostly white) people. The American Dream, I suppose. This includes the cities / suburbs of Walnut Creek, Pleasanton (the old home of PeopleSoft, now Oracle/PeopleSoft), and Concord. I will return. I need to measure myself against the Kirker Pass again.

Anita

A friend of mine from Germany, born in Ohio and residing with her husband and 2 children in Freiburg, died during the night yesterday. Her name was Anita.

I got to know Anita through church, which I attended sporadically at first, and then more often as time went on. She and I hit it off because basically, she is the type of person who appears to be on happy pills 24 hours a day and could not resist cracking jokes even during the dullest of moments. This is a very rare type of person to meet in Germany.

Anita sang with me in the choir (they were desperate for male voices and corralled me into it), and though we were not very good musicians, we did our best to keep our spirits up and stay warm somehow, in spite of rehearsing in old drafty and cold German churches (ours was not, but the ones we sang in usually were)

Now Anita is gone and, if I were still living over there, I would certainly miss her companionship and presence.

Since I am not over there, I can't really miss those things but only reminisce instead what might have been.

The feeling left is that I should have been there during these last months as the disease came back and affected her liver and body. But I left that place and there is no going back to what you used to have. My time there was done, at least, it was done in that town.

The worst thing about death is the finality of it all. Anita is gone forever. No dreams remain, no possible plans to make, or happy reunions, or joking about the good old days, when we were young and stupid, or at least adventurous and silly.

The next time I visit Freiburg, it will be a sad occasion. My best friends from there were all friends of Anita.

Moving is hard sometimes.